


the observation of things possible

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld
Genre: Gen, Sentence structure continues to be an abomination unto Nuggan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26329318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: The disappearing of Leonard of Quirm“The painter who draws merely by practice and eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence” -Leonardo da Vinci, Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting, c. 1490
Comments: 11
Kudos: 13





	the observation of things possible

Five cities on the Circle Sea were trying to hire Leonard of Quirm as a military architect and engineer and Leonard was in Ankh-Morpork, the government of which could not scrape together enough to hire him to _not_ be a military architect and engineer. This was the first genuine stumbling block encountered by the Patrician’s pursuit of keeping the next war as far into the future as possible. While he wasn’t a lizard, at any rate.

A war would mean defeat, which would be devestatingly destructive, or victory, which was even worse.

Lord Vetinari drummed his fingers on the table. And then stopped. On the solid wood of the desk in the deafening silence of the room it sounded like footsteps or that one construction site in the Unreal Estate. He replayed the sound in his head, staring at the door. One fingernail was 1.3 mm longer than it ought to be.

Leonard of Quirm had arrived in Ankh-Morpork.

Should this be dealt with under cover of darkness? Was there some obscure law that would allow for at least some degree of transparency? 

The head of the Palace Aviary was waiting outside the door.

“Come.”

“Your Lordship, I managed to get most of them, but there are gargoyles and dragons and foxes—“

“Foxes? Really? That sounds like a good sign.”

“Not really, sir, they mostly eat people’s rubbish.”

Leonard of Quirm had a habit of buying caged birds and releasing them. Of course caged birds could generally not survive being released in Ankh-Morpork.

“What is the best way to put a stop to this?” 

The head of the aviary knew the question was not directed at him. It appeared to be directed to the wall on the opposite side of the room.

“Wonse!” 

The head of the aviary assiduously decided to pretend that he did not exist.

“Wonse!”

The head of the aviary watched Lupine Wonse silently creep up behind the Patrician and gave an involuntary wince of sympathy as Lord Vetinari jumped at Wonse clearing his throat as though he had been electrically shocked. 

“Wonse, can you please send a clerk to inform Leonard da Quirm that he has an appointment.”

“Oh course, my lord.”

Leonard would have left hundreds of sketches and prototypes wherever he was staying. Someone would have to retrieve them. 

“Could you make that an appointment for an hour from now?”

“Consider it done.”

The Patrician nodded at the head of the aviary. “You may go.”

After Wonse was gone, Vetinari pulled on a pair of fingerless gloves and swung out of the window of the office. 

It was twenty feet from the edge of the roof of the Palace to the roof of the Fools Guild. He’d been able to make the jump since his fifteenth birthday. 

The birds Leonard was releasing were being sold near the docks. Leonard however, wouldn’t be staying far from the city centre. He just had to figure out where the nearest source of explosions and sulphur that wasn’t the alchemists was. 

Instead, as he ran across the roofs of the guildhalls that lined the Street of Alchemists, he saw what looked like the prow of a ship reaching out from the window of upper story room on Peach Pie Street. It was made of balsa wood and paper. 

Leonard would not mind the model being destroyed. He had already moved on. So there was no pang of guilt in destroying the work of unique genius. There was a tactile pleasure in the neat dismantling, the tearing of glue and snapping of wood. It would have been a warship. If the model oars and ropes were anything to go by, it would have been larger than any ship that had ever gone to sea. On the deck were models of things with wings and machines that looked like spiraling maple seeds. Vetinari tossed one of the latter into the air. For a moment it looked like it wasn’t going to fall at all and then, slowly, incredibly slowly it drifted to the ground. 

Fear and sadness were often directed at the same object but usually not from so completely opposite directions. He stared at the little machine. A spiral wing. A helix pteron. Then he stepped on it, crushing the framework that held up the spiral. 

Rubbing dust, it must be dust, from his eyes, he gathered up the scattered drawings from around the room. 

It was not Aircraft Time. As long as Lord Vetinari had anything to say about it, it would not be Aircraft Time until people could be trusted not to use them to drop explosives on other people. Given that people could not be trusted not to use _windows_ to drop explosives on other people, nonmagical flight would be relegated to humanity’s dreams for the foreseeable future.

The door of the flat opened and there was a gasp of surprised delight from the doorway. 

“You stay there! I draw you!” 

Vetinari glanced at the open window. Of course Leonard would react like this to someone breaking into the flat. Especially if he needed someone odd-looking to put in the back of a crowd in a painting. He ran his fingers through his hair. “Is the light good here?”

“You are the lord of the city, yes?”

“I am.”

“The light is not good here. There is no direct sunlight.”

“I can do something about that.”

“Like you did something about the large-boat-for-carrying-flapping-wing-flying-machines?”

“I am not going to apologize for that. Someone will be here soon to take you to the palace.”

Vetinari glanced at Leonard’s sketch of himself. The composition of the image conveyed a gentleness, an unhurried softness, which Vetinari objectively did not possess, but which was the hallmark of all of Leonard’s portraiture together with an arch wryness, which Vetinari emphatically did.

He had his fingers in his hair, and an expression of cool detachment. There was a dog standing behind him, and Leonard had given him wings, the colors of which were marked with pink and black wax. 

A flamingo angel? Fortunately Leonard would probably forget about the painting long before it saw completion. 


End file.
